Kalburgi/Nagpur: At least two people were killed and eight others injured when nine coaches of a Mumbai-bound Duronto Express derailed near Kalburgi in Karnataka early Saturday.
The incident took place at Martur village station, about 20 kilometres from Kalburgi. Two persons were killed and eight injured in the mishap, Amit Singh, Kalburgi superintendent of police, said.
“Two people died and eight others are injured after Mumbai-bound Lokmanya Tilak Express from Secunderabad derailed at Martur station,” he said.
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Singh said nine coaches of the train derailed between 2:15am to 2:20am.
The rescue operations are on and the injured people have been rushed to Solapur Government hospital in Maharashtra, Singh added.
NDRF has also dispatched two teams for the accident side.
“NDRF despatched 2 teams for the accident site, one from Hyderabad and one from Pune,” NDRF DG OP Singh told ANI.
Railway minister Suresh Prabhu said all possible help is being provided to the affected families and passengers.
Saturday’s accident, the fourth in just about a month, once again put the spotlight on railway safety.
On September 4, 42 people were injured after six coaches of the Chennai-Mangalore Express derailed in Tamil Nadu.
On August 4, at least 35 people died and 25 were injured when two trains derailed within minutes of each other while crossing a small bridge in Madhya Pradesh.
On August 24, five people including a Karnataka legislator were killed when a granite-laden truck rammed into an express train at a level crossing in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur.
India has the world’s fourth largest railway network that ferries more than 23 million passengers every day, but infrastructure is poorly maintained and accidents are common.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 25,006 people died and 3,882 were injured in railway accidents across the country in 2014. While most of these fatalities were caused by fall from trains or collision of trains with people on track, as many as 190 deaths were attributed to collision between trains, derailments and fire accidents.
In 2012, a government report said almost 15,000 people were killed every year on the railways, describing the deaths as an annual “massacre” due mainly to poor safety standards.
